In case you haven’t figured it out, I’ve been an anime fan for a long time, since the mid 1990s. I still watch anime. I’m the adult now and I get to decide what that means and that means I’m going to watch whatever anime I feel like. Sure, it’s great to be caught up on the latest shows as they air each week, but have you ever stumbled across an old and semi-obscure show and really got into it? Similarly, an old show that you’ve been meaning to get around to watching, and you wondered why you waited all this time? I like finding hidden gems like that.

There’s lots of old anime out there. Some of it is more popular. For example, everyone knows about Studio Ghibli for one simple reason: They make good anime. They know what they’re doing. Nausicaa? Totoro? Kiki’s Delivery Service? Castle in the Sky? Good stuff, anyone can watch it. That kind of popularity means that almost every anime fan across the the world has seen something from them, many became fans of Studio Ghibli specifically, and in turn that means some will become bigger fans than others. That comes with a cost in the form of a few who take it too far, the self-proclaimed snobs and gatekeepers. You know, That Guy. We’ve all encountered That Guy in some way or another. The names, faces, times, and locales change, but you know who I’m talking about: That Guy, that self-appointed expert.

I ain’t gonna lie, I used to be the snob, I used to be the gatekeeper. I used to be That Guy. I quit that because it helped nobody, got me nothing, and took me nowhere. I decided that hill was not mine to die on. Nobody will get anywhere if all they do is stand around being the gatekeeper. When I stopped trying to decide for others what anime was good, and came to terms with my own tastes and inclinations, my own enjoyment of anime soared.

What I’m saying is, if some folks would take the five goddamn minutes to calm down and stop offering to toss Hayao Miyazaki’s salad, FIVE FUCKING MINUTES, they would see that there’s a lot of anime out there that doesn’t need the Studio Ghibli name plastered all over it to be good. Sure, there’s a lot of crappy anime out there too, but finding good anime also means watching crap, because for some people (such as myself), a lot of shows that get dismissed by others as crap, is what I like to watch. I’d rather watch dumb crappy anime than stand guard at a gate that nobody gives half a ratfuck about, and I’m certainly not going to heed the orders of a snob with less authority than a fired mall cop. Anime is meant to be enjoyed, not fought over.

Five minutes, for fuck’s sake.

Galaxy Fraulein Yuna
SoulTaker
Nurse Witch Komugi (DVD re-watch)
My Bride is a Mermaid (Seto no Hanayome)
Eiken (BD re-watch)
Ayane’s High Kick
Battle Skipper
Magical Kanan/Canan
Jungle De Ikou!
Photon: Idiot Adventures

“Galaxy Fraulein Yuna”
5 episodes, 1995-1997
This show drops the viewer into the middle of the story with no real background. It was based on a video game, and knowledge of the video game seems to be somewhat required to understand this show. Being from the mid-90s, it’s also from a time when animation studios thought that including lots of fast flashing lights was a great effect. Then that one episode of Pokemon happened and animators stopped doing that, to the relief of epileptics. It’s not something that bothers me because I’m not epileptic, but I can see how it could be a problem for others.

The opening theme song “Funny Funny Girl” has always been a fun bop.

What is it: Yuna is simultaneously the Savior of the Galaxy and a normal student at her school. That’s already one hell of a stretch. Oh, and she’s a complete otaku for Lady Polylina, famed actress and the secret identity of Yuna’s best friend Lia. (Yuna doesn’t know Lia and Polylina are the same person.) Dark forces are trying to convince powers-that-be that Yuna is trying to take over the galaxy. More stretches. If there are any more stretches, it’ll bend space-time itself.

This was set somewhere in the middle of the 22nd Century, so whenever this is supposed to take place, I’ll be long dead and gone by then.

There’s not much to dislike about an anime that starts off with a scene of using a giant robot using atmospheric re-entry to cook an egg, then follows that up with using a satellite death-ray to blow up her house for the sole purpose of waking her up. That should tell you how this anime goes. It’s a crazy anime, but a light crazy, so not as crazy as Idol Project from last month. But y’know how sometimes an anime will start off lighthearted, then it gets more serious as the show progresses? This is not an exception. Somewhere around the fourth episode, this falls off a cliff in that regard.

Getting it: Another orphaned anime from eons ago. This was originally brought to the US on VHS, with a whopping 2 episodes. On one tape! Madness! It was also released on import LD, one episode at a time. Then ADV put that and the “Yuna Returns” series on one DVD, all 5 episodes. Which of course went out of print too many years ago. There are a few used copies floating around, so it’s not impossible. I haven’t tried to find it online but it’s probably out there.

“SoulTaker”
13 episodes, 2001
What has Akiyuki Shinbo directing and Akio Watanabe’s character designs? Um, a lot of shows, really. And here’s one of them. I remember seeing the first few episodes of this all the way back in 2002 at Katsucon and I was impressed with it, enough to buy the DVDs as they came out.

This takes place inside the “Nurse Witch Komugi” spinoff. Believe it or not. Same characters and all. While I did watch some of SoulTaker before Komugi, I finished all of Komugi first, so that may have affected my mindset on this. Honestly, within the first 3 episodes, I already decided Komugi was Best Girl, so I’m not mad.

I’ve always liked Akio Watanabe’s style, and how that style managed to avoid the “dishplate eyes” of the 90s. If you compare something like “Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko” of the 90s to the “Higurashi: Gou” series of 2021, they’ll look similar, despite the 22 year difference.

What is it: Kyousuke has amnesia and has to find all the Flickers, which are fragments of the soul of his sister, before the Kirihara group does for whatever nefarious purpose they have in mind. At least that’s how it starts out. Through various plot twists and other streams of consciousness, it eventually transitions into something about aliens and a fight on the moon. Cool. Hey, I’m just going along with it. That’s all I can do.

Getting it: This originally came out on DVD around 2002, which is when I got mine. They even have the Pioneer logo on them. Long out of print but used ones are easily found for cheap. Torrents? I guess so.

“Nurse Witch Komugi”
6+2 episodes, 2002-2005
There’s no way I was gonna leave this out, especially right after SoulTaker. This isn’t my first time watching it. It’s got replay value. Also Koyori’s maid outfit is top-tier. Does it help to have watched SoulTaker first? Maybe. A little. This is full of references to dozens of other anime anyway.

What is it: The comedic meta of SoulTaker. All of the characters are in this, seiyuu and all. They work for a talent agency, as actors for a show that looks a lot like SoulTaker. The real plot is that Komugi is a magical girl, on a mission to capture a bunch of virus monsters that cause trouble.

Komugi as a character gets more focus and development here. In SoulTaker, she was just a plot-relevant girl who liked Kyousuke. In this, she’s feisty, vain, greedy, narcissistic, combative, and all around a lot more interesting. A lot more… Real. She still likes Kyousuke in this anime.

A quirk I’ve noticed is the first 6 episodes are in widescreen 16:9, while the Magikarte Z episodes are in 4:3, even on the DVDs. I don’t know why. I’m just pointing that out.

Getting it: The first 6 episodes came out on a pair of DVDs long ago and is out of print, but they sold a lot of them. They sold enough that anywhere I go that sells used DVDs, has this on the shelf. The “Complete Collection” that came out a few years later is much rarer (and more expensive), so for the sake of watching the anime, might as well get the two singles. These look good on a 4K TV. A bit of artifacts here and there but not often.

For the Magikarte Z episodes, torrents are the only option. R2 DVDs can be found on the used market. Somehow those were skipped in the original license. There are also a trio of shorts that came with the original SoulTaker series, which indicate they were planning the Komugi series from the start.

The Komugi R remake series from 2016, while not discussed here, is readily available on BD, and streaming on Crunchyroll, last I checked.

“My Bride is a Mermaid” (Seto no Hanayome)
26+2 episodes, 2007
This was another show that I left on the backburner for far too long. I genuinely regret not watching this earlier. I am absolutely puzzled, ashamed even, as to why it took so long for me to get around to watching this. It’s a great anime. It has a lot of things I like. It has Momoi Haruko voicing a lead role. It has lots of good music. It’s funny. It’s enjoyable. It was a lot of fun to watch. It’s high-energy comedy, and it sustains that energy through the whole series. It started strong, passed the 3-episode test easily, and by the time I got to around the sixth episode, I knew it was going to be a winner. I’ve seen a lot of anime in my day and I’ll say that as anime goes, this anime is as anime as anime can get. This is 26 episodes and 2 OVAs of peak anime.

The only thing I have resembling an excuse for not watching this until now is that when this came out in 2007, anime fandom as a whole was still getting stoned off the Haruhi Suzumiya anime that aired a whole year earlier, and right before that was going to wear off, Kyoto Animation sent their candyman with a big package of Lucky Star for everyone to continue to snort/smoke/inject. In that context, it was easy for Hanayome (which was airing in the same Spring/Summer seasons) to be overlooked and under-appreciated. If all the way back in 2007, someone said that this was better than Lucky Star (and I’m sure someone tried), I would have balked and expressed doubt, having seen Lucky Star without having seen this. Should someone say that now, I might have to agree. Don’t get me wrong, Lucky Star was a great anime too, but Hanayome just might take the lead now.

This anime was made during the peak of the anime DVD boom, a heady time in its own right. There’s a certain quality to anime of this time. Shows from 2006 to 2008 had a confident optimism ranging from subtle to aggressive (such as Haruhi Suzumiya). Times were good and people had money. To me, SnH was a prime example of this confident optimism. Someone at the studio said “we’re going to make this anime and we’re going to make it work” and everyone was on board with that and that shone through in the anime itself. What defines a prime example of this period will differ from one person to the next, but to me, SnH would qualify. Anyway, it’s right in that time when it’s just old enough to be nostalgic for, and just new enough to be watchable on modern hardware without glaring artifacts; old enough to be inconspicuous behind the veil of fandom’s short memory, new enough to be obtainable without resorting to dubious methods or archaic formats. Not that DVD is the most modern format, some would say DVD is archaic too, but it’s an accessible format that’s not past end-of-life the way LD or VHS is. You can still easily get DVDs and something that can play them. Anyway.

What is it: This is halfway between “The Little Mermaid” and “The Godfather” (or “Sopranos” or “Goodfellas”, however you like your mobsters), and it’s a comedy with a bit of romance. Nagasumi (in middle school) almost drowns, gets saved by Sun the mermaid (also in middle school), and either he gets killed for seeing a mermaid’s true form or he marries into her family, which turns out to be the yakuza of the ocean. Of course almost everyone in Sun’s family hates Nagasumi and spends almost the entire series trying to kill him, either low-key or overtly. They have to be careful to not let any water get on Sun, or else she switches to her mermaid form. Everyone in this anime has square eyes. Unless they’re over-reacting to something. During production of this anime, someone asked how many different comedy tropes they should put into this, and the sole one-word reply was “yes”.

This show has a lot of parallels to “Urusei Yatsura”. Many of the main characters in SnH have direct counterparts in UY, with enough traits changed up to prevent Rumiko Takahashi from calling her lawyers. If you liked UY, you’ll like this. If you’ve seen UY and not SnH, then imagine if Lum wasn’t ultra-jealous and Ataru wasn’t trying to hit on anything female, and instead they both took the relationship seriously and tried to make it work. Similarly, if you liked the premise of UY and didn’t get into it because the prospect of acquiring and watching the 200 episodes is too daunting, or if you prefer anime dubbed in English, then SnH is for you.

Getting it: Funimation has the main series on DVD. A Jackson and a Hamilton (or a Lincoln) will get you all 26 episodes in one 4-disc set with both English and Japanese, and it’s easy enough to find. (Shit, I remember paying more than that for a VHS tape with 4 episodes of UY back in the day.) They also have it streaming. That’s the easy part. The two OVAs require a bit more effort to find, as they aren’t included in Funimation’s set. Better off downloading them. I’m holding out a bit of hope that someday Funimation will release a BD set of it and include those. I remember buying the DVD set for this. I’m not sure when; I’m thinking early or mid-2014, likely during a buying frenzy at Otakon or Katsucon. All I know is that it appeared on my shelf and stayed there for an undetermined amount of time. I was serious enough about watching this to buy it, I’ll give myself that much credit.

Video quality on a 4K TV is good and consistently clean. That’s not surprising, given that it’s from a time when DVD authoring was largely figured out, BD was no longer an afterthought, and the show seems to have had a decent budget to start with. Perhaps this could benefit from a BD release in the US. There is a BD release of this in Japan, but it’s an Avex title so the only way of buying it means physically going to Japan (which is impossible right now), and besides that, the price is damn close to $500. It’s not even translated. So that’s a pile of nopes when this can be had for less than $30 for a set of bi-lingual DVDs that already looks good enough.

“Eiken”
2 episodes, 2004 (BD edition, 2020)
Now I know I’ve covered Eiken a long time ago, because there’s no way I could ignore something like that when it came out. I did write up something of a review all the way back in 2004 when I first saw this, and because much of that review is still relevant, I’m just going to re-use a lot of it (after a bit of a cleanup and rearrangement). Even now, it’s hard to ignore despite being only 2 episodes, and mentioning it in various online venues usually elicits a negative reaction and frantic clutching of pearls. The reactions are along the lines of “Harumph! That anime is rubbish and should have never been made! Harumph, I say!” or “I don’t like fanservice, it gives me a funny feeling in my pants and then mommy gives me a spanking for it”. And so on. Then after they’re done with their virtue signaling circle-jerk, they go back to masturbating to their fantasy threesome with Miyazaki and Anno.

Do I already own Eiken on DVD? Yes. I also own the import DVD, the manga (both the 12 volumes that were released here in the US and the original 18 volumes from Japan), some of the soundtracks, the PC game, and some doujinshi, penned by the original mangaka himself. Yes, Eiken doujinshi is a thing that exists. Now that we’ve established where I stand on this show and its related works, I think it’s time to start.

What is it: Fanservice. That’s what Eiken is. When it comes to Eiken, there are people who haven’t seen it, and people who have. And of those who have seen it, most tend to run away from it scarred for life, and the remaining few are… the believers. Of all the anime that I’ve seen, I’ve never seen anything with as much fanservice as Eiken. Blatant, relentless, unflinching. It looks like it was made to parody all the fanservice/harem anime out there, but in doing so, has topped them all. So what does this show feature? A spectacular slow-motion sequence involving noodles and a complete disregard for the law of gravity (a scene that took several minutes to set up), which is only exceeded by the Yogurt Slide event, and the most sexual innuendo an anime could ever hope to pack into the scant few minutes that this scene lasts. There’s camel toe for days, yet no direct nudity.

Yes, there is a plot, although not much of one. Densuke Mifune, newly transferred to the school and perhaps the dullest boy in the world (of course), is drafted into the Eiken Club because of his pure averageness. The Eiken Club comprises almost entirely girls (of course) and they all have huge knockers (of course!) except for one, and that’s only because she’s in second grade, and this second grader is one of those technical geniuses that can design/build/repair anything (of course). So, Densuke falls for Chiharu, after falling on her (of course), landing his hands on breasts that were likely viewed as prototypes for the landers for the Mars rovers but deemed too large to be feasible (of course). Then there’s the Ultra Game, with the Yogurt Slide. Fanservice ensues. Whatever’s been done before, has been overdone here. There is nothing more I can say (of course). This is in ONE EPISODE.

Episode 2 continues with the Ultra Game, right after the Yogurt Slide. Kirika continues to use Densuke’s head as a resting place for her boobs while doing suggestive acts with bananas, Komoe continues to run in place, everyone slips on banana peels left on the ground like the plot devices they are, Yuriko continues to do everything short of ripping Densuke’s clothes off and screwing him, Chiharu continues to mope, and Densuke just continues to live with it all. Eiken being what it is, the second episode has a few things the first episode didn’t have. Such as maids, eels, and phallic 12” chocolate popsicles. This episode also has Densuke wearing a girl’s school swimsuit, which is complicated by Yuriko continuously trying to give him an erection.

The first time I watched it all the way back in 2004, I knew I was in trouble when the fansubber put in a blurb about milk. Half an hour later, I am temporarily catatonic, my eyes unfocused and moving independently of each other, (possibly a side effect from attempting to track multiple jiggling) but I’m still able to maintain some coherent thoughts, steering my frame towards the fridge not unlike a crippled bomber in a WWII movie, with an overwhelming craving for dairy products of any kind. My survival relied heavily on my already high tolerance for fanservice. When I finally regained control of my senses, I realized that others had to see this. I would not force anyone, they would be given the option to view it of their own free will. Will I watch it again? Absolutely. I’ve already lost count of how many times I’ve seen it, and I can see myself watching it many more times.

The most important thing to remember about Eiken is this: Fanservice isn’t the theme, but the punchline.

Getting it: The DVD from many years ago is out of print but can be easily found used. That’s a bit moot because MediaBlasters recently put this on BD for the re-release, which is impressive because even Japan didn’t get this on BD, so I’m wondering if this is just an upscale. But either way, there’s no sense in being harsh on it. Upscale or not, it looks pretty good on a 4K TV, even though it’s still in 4:3. This show is from 2004 and the BD can be had for less than $20. Anyone who was going to bitch about that was going to bitch about Eiken in general, and I ain’t got time for that noise.

“Ayane’s High Kick”
2 episodes, 1996
Sports anime isn’t my thing (but I’ll make an exception for Keijo). I’m inclined to think I picked this up because it was fairly cheap ($7) and only an hour long, and discovered the highlight of this anime is the main character is voiced by Yuko Miyamura. This anime is 90s and it shows. It looks 90s. It sounds 90s. Originally six episodes were planned, but only two were made. That happens often, sadly. An anime project will get just enough money to get it started, and then the rug gets pulled out from under.

What is it: Ayane wants to be a pro wrestler, but gets tricked into taking up kickboxing instead, believing that it’s training for wrestling. She’s not very bright. Since this is only an hour, the story doesn’t get very far. Some training, and a couple matches. That’s it. I’m sure the theoretical rest of this would have had more action. We’ll never know. That’s about all I can really say.

Getting it: It’s a very early Central Park Media DVD (1998!), so it’s not going to be found new. I picked up mine used for cheap. CPM licensing a bunch of obscure titles and then throwing them at the wall to see what sticks is probably why there were any copies at all. If that anime were made or licensed today, it would have gone direct to streaming and stayed there.

Video quality is strained on a 4K TV. It’s watchable, but a lot of video flaws kinda bubble to the surface. It feels like it may have well been played off a VHS tape.

“Battle Skipper: The Movie”
3 episodes (what), 1995
Pay no mind to the production values. There aren’t any in this 90-minute toy commercial. But y’know, that’s not always a deal-killer for me. If the anime has a decent story, and is entertaining, I can look past animation flaws. I can look past the blatant shortcuts, the laziness, the inconsistencies, the quirks in character designs. I could deal with how Battle Skipper looks like what would happen if Tenchi Muyo was animated while everyone was suffering brutal hangovers and the onset of influenza. Given the nature of what work conditions are like for animators in Japan, that’s probably what happened.

I have no idea why this was labeled as a movie when it’s obviously three distinct episodes, complete with opening and ending themes. I tried looking up the line of toys that this anime was tied to. I could find nothing. I could have tried harder but honestly I couldn’t be arsed to. We all know that by the time we get to the second page of results on Google, it’s over. Pack it in and go home; the trail has already gone cold.

What is it: This wanted to be Project A-ko. It’s the Etiquette Club versus the Debutante Club for control of St. Ignacio High, and whoever controls St. Ignacio High, controls the world! There are giant robots and spaceships involved. The name “Battle Skipper” comes from the name of the robots. Much like “Gundam” is full of giant robots called Gundams. You knew that already. Or I hope you do.

Getting it: Another gem from CPM! Out-of-print as fuck. This was another I bought long ago, right after I bought my first DVD player. There might a used DVD of it somewhere. I don’t think there are torrents. I don’t think anyone cares enough to upload this anywhere.

On a 4K TV, this is ROUGH. Artifacts up one wall and down the other. Have you ever seen a jpg file that’s been shared, reshared, posted, reposted, and so on, across every social media site which sees fit to compress it further every time? And when you see it, in one glance you know that image has been around for years and has been to the furthest reaches of the internet and back? That’s what the video quality is like on this. My BD player and TV reached their respective limits and gave up on trying to create pixels that would blend in. There just wasn’t enough data for the hardware to work with. This anime was obviously meant to be watched only on a bog-standard VCR connected to a bog-standard CRT TV. It’s like they used an off-the-shelf tape for the source, then encoded it into a dialup-friendly RealPlayer file more than once during the authoring. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating? By all means, this wasn’t a great anime, but it deserved better than video quality that looks like it was put through the encoding equivalent of a chipper-shredder. Even MD Geist doesn’t deserve that kind of treatment.

“Magical Canan”
4+2 OVAs, 2000-2002
13 TV episodes, 2005
Is it Canan? Kanan? Depends on what you’re hankering for. Usually the OVAs come out after the TV series, here they don’t. The all-ages TV series goes by Canan, the hentai OVAs that came out in 2000 and 2002 go by Kanan. It’s not that one needs to see both to get the full story; the TV series is simply an all-ages retelling of the OVAs and associated eroge. Anyway, I’m going to cover both versions, because I can. Starting with the hentai, because that’s how I roll.

Do not get this confused with Kanon. That would be the anime fandom equivalent of mixing cleaner with drain opener. Don’t do it. Just don’t. There’s also Canaan, also an entirely different anime.

What is it: Both versions are magical girl shows, with roughly the same premise, except one (Kanan) has sex and the main characters are in high school. Chihaya, an Average High School Girl (or middle school, depending on which version), gets picked/drafted/coerced into becoming Magical Warrior Carmine. She’s the only girl who can resonate with Natsuki, her mascot who can turn human, and a rather handsome one at that. Then they have to track down a bunch of evil seeds that cause people to turn into monsters and act out their deepest desires. Which for the hentai series, means exactly what you think it does. Oh, and how does Chihaya boost her magical power? If you say “by fucking Natsuki”, you’re correct.

The TV series has some differences aside from the lack of sex. Such as Chihaya and her friends are in middle school, there’s a higher budget, and the clothes aren’t so tissue-paper-thin to be ripped off by a strong breeze. Other than that, the story is the same. Characters have the same names, same appearance, same outfits, same traits. Even Chihaya’s Carmine form is the same. Kinda hard to believe that only a couple hours before watching the TV series, I was watching these characters all having sex in the OVAs.

I’m picking up some Nurse Witch Komugi vibes from this show in general, if only because I watched that recently. There’s the “rival magical girl with the ojou-sama laugh who’s also the main character’s best friend” thing going on, and the “evil presence making people do bad things”. Except the OVAs came before Komugi, so it’s safe to say it wasn’t trying to copy Komugi.

Does this mean that if there’s a version that takes place far enough in the future that her Carmine form will still look the same, even if Chihaya is old enough to be a great-grandmother? Is there an anime that’s tried to address this?

The TV series tried to copy Card Captor Sakura and tried to hide that by changing up some things and adding a bit of fanservice. Chihaya’s Carmine form is definitely more mature, identical to the form used in the hentai. And there are some tentacles because this version has not forgotten its hentai roots. Akio Watanabe’s art style isn’t as prominent in this show as it was in SoulTaker/Komugi. It’s just “there” enough that I could notice it. You know how there are filler episodes for a series? This is like an entire filler SERIES for the Winter 2005 season. This isn’t a high-energy anime. Maybe I’d have enjoyed it more if I watched it as it came out, or at least watched this before Seto no Hanayome. With SnH still fresh in my mind, this can’t compete.

Getting it: DiscoTek has the TV series available in a set, on 2 discs. The hentai OVAs are sold by Adult Source Media. Oh, and ASM put those out on individual discs. One OVA per disc. I don’t know why, except for maybe that’s a holdover from the early days of DVD, when anime companies were still adhering to the VHS business model of putting only a couple episodes out at a time. Either way, both versions are easily available. Just understand that if you go all in for both versions, you’ll be paying at least twice as much for the OVA collection than for the TV set, getting half of the episodes, and it’ll take up 6x the shelf space. Funny thing is, it would be easier to find the DVDs than download torrents, especially of the main series. For the Summer Special OVAs, I ended up having to watch those untranslated. Not that it matters; hentai doesn’t need a translation.

On a 4K TV, the video quality for the hentai version is surprisingly good, especially when considering that hentai almost always gets a lower budget, and this is from 20 years ago. It then stands to reason that the TV series should look better. It does. Slightly. The TV series, as shown on a 4K TV, is Good Enough.

“Jungle De Ikou!”
3 episodes, 1997
Speaking of young girls transforming into busty magical girls, there’s Jungle De Ikou. Oh, 90s. Don’t ever change. Not that it can. Face-faults galore in this anime! The character design is decidedly 90s, with the borderline super-deformed faces and reactions.

What is it: Natsumi’s father brings home a weird statue and it enables her (aged 10) to transform into Mii, a busty fertility goddess, by doing an erotic dance. Wait. I… Hm. Look, I like fanservice. I’ve seen a lot of fanservice. But the fanservice in this… Y’know… This anime seems to be self-aware of its own awkwardness, admitting that the original concept is kinda messed up in a bunch of ways. And remember that Natsumi is channeling and manifesting Mii, who existed before as a separate entity, and Natsumi goes back to normal after whatever crisis has passed. That kind of helps. I guess. Maybe I’m reading too much into it and I just need to turn off more of my brain. This is coming from the dude who likes Eiken.

Like many OVAs of its day, this wasn’t meant to be the complete story. It was meant to be an appetizer, a sample of the greater franchise, which included manga, radio dramas, extra stories put on CD, and so on.

Getting it: Media Blasters released it a long time ago on DVD, and on BD in 2020. I have the DVD version. All told, it’s easy to find and doesn’t cost much.

On a 4K TV, the picture quality is on par with what else I’ve been watching. It’s alright. The artifacts that do appear now and then are tolerable. Do I like this enough that I would re-buy it on BD? I have my doubts.

“Photon: The Idiot Adventures”
6 episodes, 1997-1999
This anime looks like Tenchi Muyo, and does in fact take place within the Tenchi Muyo continuity. This was another set of OVAs released here and there over the course of over a year. This show also features Yui Horie at the start of her career.

I came into this thinking that Photon, the titular character, was the idiot. I was wrong. Photon himself is probably autistic; doesn’t say much, sees things differently, but his heart’s in the right place and he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. Everyone else in this show is an idiot. Therein lies the charm in this fun diversion of an anime. Much like Seto no Hanayome, I should have watched this a long time ago. (SnH is closer to Photon than it is to today.)

What is it: Set on a desert-type planet that looks suspiciously like a future post-apocalyptic Earth, Photon set out (for at least the fortieth time) to find his friend Aun who had stolen the village heirloom for the purpose of catching the affection of a famous singer (who turned out to be already married). The village heirloom is a marker; a black permanent ink marker. Photon wakes up with “baka” written on his forehead, and when he finds Keyne, naked and asleep, he writes “baka” on her forehead. Now they’re married. Really. In this anime, people get married by drawing the same crest on each others’ foreheads, except Photon is the only one who doesn’t really understand that. Everything runs off an essence called Aho.

Getting it: This was originally a CPM release. In fact, this is one of the first DVDs I bought, back when CPM itself still existed. In this particular version, it looks like CPM reused a lot of material from when they released this on VHS, 2 episodes per tape. DiscoTek then picked up the license and they have it readily available on DVD. Easy enough.

4K TV test: There are some artifacts here and there, given the vintage, and that I’m also watching the CPM version. It’s otherwise fine. I guess being an OVA is a help in that regard. I would hope the DiscoTek version would look even better. Riddle me this, Batman: How is it that this show, which has 6 episodes on one disc, looks better than Battle Skipper did with 3 episodes on one disc, from the same company and from around the same time?

On second thought, it’s okay if you don’t want to answer; in fact, don’t answer that. I shouldn’t have asked in the first place. I’m sorry. I went too far with that question.

Alright, I think that wraps up March. There are still a couple days left in the month which are enough to get in a handful of OVAs. Maybe squeeze in a 12 episode series if I hustle. But being an adult is a double-edged sword. I got shit to do that’s taking a higher priority than watching animu, so this is where I’m gonna pinch off this log.